So! Thinking about getting a little aggressive with the accounting? Forget aggressive, let’s just say you need to make your numbers next quarter come hell or high water? Maybe there are some pesky internal controls that you would really, really like to get around. For the good of the company of course.
Do whatcha gotta do but before you do, consider the sentence of Charles McCall, the former chairman of McKesson Corp. first. If, after reading his story, you decide it’s still worth the risk, then proceed with your plans.
A former chairman of San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. has been sentenced in federal court to 10 years in prison for securities fraud in an accounting scheme that cost shareholders $8.6 billion in 1999.
Charles McCall, 65, of Delray Beach, Fla., was given the prison term by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco on Friday.
McCall was convicted by a jury in Alsup’s court in November of four counts of securities fraud and one count of circumventing the company’s internal accounting controls.
…
Prosecutors said that in the fraud, HBO & Co. and McKesson HBOC inflated revenues by backdating software sales and concealing side letters that would have allowed buyers to cancel proposed purchases that the company had counted as revenue.
This poor bastard got sentenced to 10 years (at 65, he’ll be lucky if manages to serve the full sentence) and he probably doesn’t know a internal control from his ass, other than at one time, he thought it was enough of a hindrance that he’d just ignore it altogether. If anyone has an extra copy of COSO laying around, kindly send it his way. He’ll have time to get caught up on the idea.
Ex-McKesson chairman gets 10 year sentence [SF Chronicle]
